Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics

One of the leading public intellectuals of her generation, bell hooks has authored over 20 books, including several classics in African-American and Women's Studies. Known mainly as a feminist thinker, hooks addresses a broad range of issues related to gender, race, teaching, and media, always advancing the understanding that these topics must be conceived of as interconnected, not isolated strands. Yearning crosses disciplinary boundaries in major debates on cultural criticism and the politics of race and gender. Hooks warns us about the tendency of the discourse about difference to be removed from the struggle we must all wage against power.

About the author (1990)

Bell Hooks was born Gloria Watkins on September 25, 1952. She grew up in a small Southern community that gave her a sense of belonging as well as a sense of racial separation. She has degrees from Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. She has served as a noted activist and social critic and has taught at numerous colleges. Hooks uses her great-grandmother's name to write under as a tribute to her ancestors. Hooks writes daring and controversial works that explore African-American female identities. In works such as Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism and Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, she points out how feminism works for and against black women. Oppressed since slavery, black women must overcome the dual odds of race and gender discrimination to come to terms with equality and self-worth.